Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D. is a materials physicist, self-owned, a benevolent and tolerant Objectivist, a husband and father, the owner of a materials analysis laboratory, and a thinking individualist. The critical battle of our day is the conflict between the individual and the state. We must be ever vigilant and constant defenders of the equal sovereign rights of the individual to life, liberty, property, self-ownership, and the personal pursuit of happiness.

Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at thinking, intelligent individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

15 November 2011

Democrat Socialism, Energy, and Pipeline Hysteria

Obama's dictate that the private sector not create 20,000 construction jobs now and up to 465,000 future jobs in the U.S. by denying the Keystone XL pipeline, is a highly enlightening illustration of the environmental and global warming hysteria of many of the supporters of the Democrat Socialist Party. Let us examine this pipeline and energy hysteria more closely and learn.

In 2009, there were 148,622 miles of oil and oil product pipelines in the U.S. There were also 1,539,911 miles of natural gas pipeline in the U.S. The Keystone XL project wanted to add 1,661 miles of oil pipeline to this massive network of pipelines. Some of the major pipelines now in existence are shown in the map below.

The green-coded pipelines are major oil pipelines, the red lines are major gas pipelines, and the blue lines are product pipelines. The Keystone XL pipeline will bring 830,000 barrels a day of Canadian tar sand crude oil from Alberta down through Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska to link to an already operating 298 mile pipeline segment across Kansas to the important storage and transit center of Cushing, Oklahoma. It will then build a segment from Cushing on to the Gulf Coast oil refineries at Port Arthur and Houston, Texas. These Gulf Coast refineries have been hurting recently due to reduced production of Mexican and Venezuelan oil by the inefficient national oil companies of those countries. This supply of dependable Canadian oil will be a godsend to these important oil refineries. The pipeline would be built at an actual construction cost of $7 billion for the portion in the U.S. by TransCanada to supplement a smaller pipeline capacity of 435,000 barrles a day already in use bringing Canadian tar sands oil to oil refineries at Wood River and Patoka, Illinois near St. Louis with a branch to Cushing, Oklahoma. The Keystone XL and present TransCanada pipelines are shown in the map below:

The red and blue lines are the existing lines, while the dashed lines are the new pipelines to be built. One of the objections to the pipeline is that it crosses the Ogallala Aquifer (misspelled in the US State Dept. map) shown in blue. This aquifer is found in 8 states and is a very important aquifer. If you examine the map of major pipelines above, you will find that a great many pipelines already cross the Ogallala Aquifer. These pipelines were built with older pipeline technology and without anywhere near the critical examination given to the Keystone XL Pipeline project. Most general oil spill concerns by environmentalists would be better directed at the 149,000 miles of older oil pipelines. For instance, many of these pass under riverbeds at a depth of 8 feet, while the Keystone XL Pipeline will be buried 25 feet below riverbeds. The Keystone XL Pipeline will have the latest in protective coatings and be built with more corrosion resistant and stronger steel than many older pipelines.

The single environmentalist objection that may have some merit is that the Keystone XL pipeline will cross the permeable sands of the Sand Hills in Nebraska where the Ogallala Aquifer is particularly shallow and vulnerable. After the Obama administration decision to delay a decision on the pipeline until 2013, TransCanada has just announced that it is considering several route changes to avoid or minimize the transit distance of the pipeline in the Sand Hills. The Sand Hills cover the northern and western areas of Nebraska. At least two of the existing major oil pipelines shown in the upper pipeline map above cross both the Sand Hills and the Ogallala Aquifer under them. If this were a problem, the State Department should have made an early decision against the pipeline and demanded it be rerouted then. If this is a critical environmental matter, the existing pipelines through the Sand Hills and over the Ogallala Aquifer should be shut down.

My expectation is that this is not that critical an environmental matter because there are already huge natural oil and gas deposits in and around the Ogallala Aquifer. Check out the shale oil deposits map below:

We see that the Palo Duro, Niobrara, and Excello/Mulky shale oil deposits are co-located with the Ogallala Aquifer. There are also extensive traditional oil fields in the Texas panhandle and western Oklahoma. The southwestern area of Kansas has many natural gas fields. Oil oozes to the surface in many areas of Texas and Oklahoma and yet the water supplies are rarely contaminated. Many major oil fields are crossed by rivers and yet there is no significant pollution of those rivers. Over-active imaginations can create many nightmare situations, but they actually require more unusual circumstances than one would expect to occur.

While one would hope that at worst a rerouting of the Keystone XL pipeline will still allow it to be built, one can count on the environmentalists to continue their many other objections and to do everything they can to prevent the pipeline. One of their biggest beefs is that they claim that much CO2 is emitted in extracting the bitumen and oil from the tar sands in northern Alberta. Concern about this is based on the fallacious hypothesis that CO2 emissions will result in catastrophic global warming. In any case, improved extraction methods have reduced the emitted CO2 by 38%.

There are other environmental concerns expressed pertaining to water use in Canada, but these are concerns we should leave to the Canadians. In any case, they are going to proceed to develop their tar sands projects and will sell the oil to the Chinese if we refuse it. Still another environmentalist objection to the import of Canadian oil from the tar sands is that it is an obnoxious oil to refine. Our Gulf Coast refineries will be using it to replace Venezuelan oil in large part and Venezuelan oil is also a nasty oil to refine. Our refineries are quite capable of handling nasty oil, while satisfying the EPA.

Among the great advantages of the Keystone XL pipeline is that it skirts the western edge of the Bakken shale oil formation in North Dakota, Montana, and Saskatchewan. It will be able to take on 65,000 barrels a day of the light and sweet crude oil from the Bakken formation. This oil is highly valued by oil refineries since it is very easy to process. There is a very great need to add to the pipeline capacity for transporting our own Bakken shale oil to the refineries of the Gulf Coast. It is estimated that the pipeline will save $36 million to $146 million a year in costs for Bakken oil.

Oil and gas related jobs have risen by almost 200,000 since 2003, making this one of the few bright spots in the U.S. economy. This has happened despite consistent opposition from Democrat Socialist environmental groups. U.S. oil production has risen for the first time since the mid-1980s and natural gas output has far exceeded expectations to the point that natural gas prices are now very low. Gulf Coast refiners would save $473 million a year if only 400,000 barrels a day of oil were delivered to them.

TransCanada has already invested $2 billion in the Keystone XL Pipeline and is suffering from a lack of income from money it has borrowed due to having already waited for 33 months to get approval. The total investment by TransCanada will be $13 billion, but with other related investments by other companies, the total investment may come to $20 billion. The Wall Street Journal reports that there will be 131,000 jobs created during the construction phase with 13,000 working on the actual construction of the pipeline. During the construction phase, state and local tax revenues will increase by $600 million. After construction, the pipeline will increase property tax revenues by $5.2 billion over its lifetime.

The environmentalist objections, to which the Obama administration has acceded, are mostly bogus and wrongheaded. Greater problems exist with already installed pipelines, though such problems are exaggerated. The one problem with some justification is going to be addressed with a route change now, but this was mishandled and could have been dealt with long ago so that jobs would be created now in the private sector. Even this objection to the Sand Hills transit is likely exaggerated and misplaced in that other pipelines with older technology and practices already transit the Sand Hills and the underlying Ogallala Aquifer.

More fundamentally the environmentalists are objecting to the use of inexpensive and reliable energy sources while falsely claiming that we can meet our needs with so-called green energy. Never mind that the so-called green energy is expensive and unreliable and whenever any particular project is considered it almost always meets determined opposition from environmentalists.

Obama denied the TransCanada application to build the Keystone XL pipeline until at least 2013 because the Democrat Socialist Party is fundamentally opposed to man improving his lifestyle and security through his voluntary cooperation with others in the private sector. It demands control of every individual's value choices and the power to squelch their independent choices is maintained by demanding that it micromanage our individual lives. Gaining control of all of our commercial, livelihood activities requires complete control over our use of energy. This is why the EPA, State Department, Dept. of Energy, NOAA, and NASA are all united with environmentalist groups everywhere to keep Americans from having inexpensive and reliable fossil fuel energy by any means possible. This is why, despite constant rhetoric about being focused on creating jobs, this Obama administration is only in the business of killing private sector jobs.

It is by no means clear that the great effort of TransCanada to create many jobs throughout our economy and the Canadian economy will succeed in the end. We are far better off with Canadian oil taking the place of Venezuelan and Saudi Arabian oil from the reliability of supply standpoint. It is much wiser to enrich Canadians than to enrich Hugo Chavez or the Saudi Princes. Besides just being better people, the Canadians will spend much more of their added wealth on American goods and services than will Venezuelans and Saudis.

Our having the option of a larger supply of Canadian oil always gives us the chance of acquiring less expensive oil and that gives us a general advantage throughout our economy. Manufacturing and transportation costs will come down and that will make us much more competitive in international markets. Americans will be able to raise their standard of living due to lower costs, more jobs, and increased exports. These are very serious advantages and we should be adamant in opposing the Democrat Socialist Party in its consistent efforts to deny these advantages to Americans. While many followers of that party are simply thoughtless and ignorant, there are many also who are simply mean-hearted, brutal, and too envious to think straight.

There are plenty of Democrat Socialists who do not have the personal ethics to refrain from doing great damage to their fellow man. Indeed, this knowledge that they lack such personal ethics is part of the reason they project such maliciousness of intent upon everyone in the private sector. Strangely, they block knowledge that if this were the nature of man, then the actions of man in the government sector would be as bad, indeed worse. Because it is mostly Progressive Elitists who are drawn to roles in government, we generally do observe avarice, mean-heartedness, and ruthless suppression of others at the heart of our over-grown and unconstitutional government. Obama is their leader and he must depart in 2012 if our economy and lifestyle are to improve.

10 comments:

Anonymous
said...

This Keystone Pipeline issue has been argued for MONTHS now, so why is this the first time I've seen or heard about any of the information posted in this article? Because privileged people ALL think information,"is for me to know and for you to find out". This sort of childishness about information concerning the world around us is my biggest gripe! Instead of the Pro-Keystone people making the information included in this article common knowledge, asking for support, & asking President Obama to check out this information to make a better decision, you apply some sort of falsehood reasoning behind the environmental protestors complaints, as well as behind President Obama's rejection of it. You try to slip it into some stack of bills to be signed with an "Urgent Deadline" stamp on the outside of it like The President of the United States is too stupid to realize that he had not been informed of this at the time he saw it in the stack that came across his desk, and then together point and say,"See? President Obama doesn't want to help America! We should impeach him for this!" Assholes! Where do you jackasses get off at ordering and trying to manipulatively coerce The President to "sign this NOW so we can make jobs", instead of politely asking for discourse, & intelligently stating your good points so that they can be understood by EVERYONE! As much bullshit as President Obama went through over that Gulf Oil Spill, and as much damage as it did, you CANNOT expect The President to be REMOTELY interested in running a NEW oil pipeline anywhere near a major water source for EIGHT freakin states! The fact that some cluck can come up with some fake campaign for capturing a dead man in Uganda and have it go viral in 2 days time, means that EVERYONE should know about the pertinent information posted on this article,(minus the anti-Obama rhetoric), because it was placed in plain view on an widespread internet news network like Huffington Post or on YouTube..not somebody's idle Blogger account! Nobody freakin uses Blogger anymore! You guys doin all this pussyfootin with this highly pertinent information about the Keystone XL project ARE THE REASON IT IS REJECTED & NEGLECTED! NO ONE WANTS TO ALLOW ANOTHER DISASTER! THIS INFORMATION HELPS PROVE THAT A DISASTER CAN BE AVOIDED AND THAT KEYSTONE CAN BE RE-ROUTED IF NEEDED! I also think you should add safety shut off valves or something, so that in the event a disaster were to happen, the damage could be minimized & controlled. Also, if you dipsticks were so concerned about making jobs, you'd illustrate an adjacent plan to improve the existing shallow pipelines as well, which would secure future jobs and improve the economy. But who am I kidding, people with multiple mansions and dollar signs in their eyes only think about themselves and their own pockets, right? Maybe if you put this information in people's hands on a massive scale then the people will support it. The President will definitely honor the people, not a group of greedy oil tycoons. Duh!

Contrary to your suppositions, I did not make any bill to present to Obama under hurry up conditions and I did not hide any of this information from anyone. In fact, I just thought rationally about what the issues should be or were and looked up the relevant information on the Internet. I am not part of a conspiracy! I will leave such conspiracy activities to the fanatical environmentalists, catastrophic global warmists, and those who have an economic advantage due to preventing the building of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Keystone XL pipeline has been under review by the Obama administration since its inception. If he had competent appointees in positions to review it, the decision would have been made long ago. It is ridiculous to imply that he has been rushed to judgment, unless you are blaming his own people for not presenting it to him a long time ago.

Cut-off valves were in every pipeline I worked on when I was a roustabout some summers in college in Oklahoma and Texas. The Keystone XL pipeline is much more advanced and safety conscious than those older pipelines were.

The jobs that will result in oil refineries, in transportation, and in manufacturing will be many more than those due to the construction of the pipeline and will be long-lasting as well. Mostly, however, the tragedy here is that Obama's and the Democrats' actions on the Keystone XL pipeline show a general disregard for the American right to earn a living and to associate for commercial reasons in the private sector with minimal interference from an over-weaning government.

The need for the Keystone Pipeline is baloney.There have been several articles citing that rail capacity exists that can handle all the oil the can boil up out of the ground.Additionally new oil plays all across America are obviating the need for Canada's very polluting heavy crude.

Whether railroads can haul all of the oil or not is irrelevant. Railroads are less efficient than pipelines, their use is probably more likely to result in more spills, and the free market should have the opportunity to decide how much oil it will transport by pipeline or by railroad.

Once again, the free market, not government, should be allowed to decide whether it wants Canadian oil or U.S. oil, which to date Obama is not allowing to be developed on either federal land or offshore as a matter of deep-seated administration policy. He has done all he can to suppress oil exploration, development, transport, and use.

Obama and most of the Democrat Party leadership are very proud of their socialist beliefs, although they do recognize that it is best if most of the voters are not very aware of their foundational ideology.

Obama and the Democrat Party leadership are not at all willing to listen to rational argument on these matters. There are some people who due to long family association vote Democrat or who due to ignorance vote Democrat. Some of them are reachable. Also many independents are reachable. Finally, there are also many issues on which I need to persuade Republicans, Libertarians, and Tea Party people to change their opinions. Of course, most of the latter are generally in agreement on the issue of the Keystone XL pipeline and many other energy issues, but not all of them.

We cannot fight the evils of collectivism and socialism if we refuse to recognize that they motivate those who attack our liberties in many ways. We must be tireless advocates of the only real minority, the individual, and his sovereign rights to life, liberty, property, the ownership of his own body, mind, and labor, and of his right to pursue his personal happiness.

There are some who are nominally on the right who are collectivists and among them there may be a few who believe government should own all property and redistribute income heavily. They seem to be a fairly rare bunch, however. There are more people on the right who want to impose various religious beliefs and I am not aligned with them. Any adequate description of real political alignment ought to cover at least two dimensions. A one-dimensional description is actually pretty ridiculous. It is often useful to plot where one stands against civil and economic rights for the individual for instance.

My earlier comment that moving oil by pipeline rather than by rail is probably safer is now supported by several accidents and explosions of rail cars.

Obama is still dallying on a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. It is clear he is not going to allow himself to be rushed into a decision! He will continue to dither as long as possible, likely until after the 2014 election. Obama is really, really good at dithering. Closing Gitmo, delaying ObamaCare, policy on Syria, response to Benghazi, the investigation into the IRS discrimination tactics against Tea Party groups, and many a Present vote as a legislator come immediately to mind.

Ayn Rand on Minorities

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."

Hillary Clinton on Job Creation

"Don't let anybody tell you that, you know, its corporations and businesses that create jobs."

Socialists never want anyone to credit individuals with a productive purpose as the source of their jobs. When the government piles on such heavy taxes and regulations as to prevent job formation, they are always trying to misdirect the people's attention. Hillary has been vigorous in promising more taxes and more major regulations which will make the Obama record of 0.5% annual increases in real per capita GDP look good in comparison.

Frederic Bastiat

"It's impossible to introduce into society a greater evil than this, the conversion of Law into an instrument of PLUNDER."

Ayn Rand

"The number of its adherents is irrelevant to the truth or falsehood of an idea. A majority is as fallible as a minority or as an individual man. A majority vote is not an epistemological validation of an idea." ... "it is important to note the epistemological significance of a free society. In a free society, the pursuit of truth is protected by the free access of any individual to any field of endeavor he may choose to enter." ... "This prevents the formation of any coercive "elite" in any profession -- it prevents the legalized enforcement of a "monopoly on truth" by any gang of power seekers -- it protects the free market place of ideas -- it keeps all doors open to man's inquiring mind."

The catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis is no exception to these general truths about the right of every individual to examine and evaluate any idea.

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Saul Alinsky

"To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life."

It is good to understand what the nihilists think, especially since such politicians as Obama and Hillary admire this man and use his principles for damaging the private sector and Capitalism.

Do Not Subordinate Your Mind to the Mind of Another

The vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.

John Galt in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Ronald Reagan

"If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"

A democratic society that needs a much-controlling government to manage the affairs of its People has a People so lacking in character and ability that there is no hope the People can democratically elect leaders of good character and adequate capability. That society is doomed by a self-contradiction. The escape from doom is the development in the People of such character and ability that they shun a much-controlling government.

Aesop

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."

Aldous Huxley

Ayn Rand

"'There are no evil thoughts, Mr. Rearden,' Francisco said softly, 'except one: the refusal to think.'"

Francisco D'Anconia to Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged

Frederic Bastiat on the Law

"It has been used to destroy its own objective. It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.”

Louis L'Amour in High Lonesome

"Folks talk a lot about the maternal feeling in women, but they say nothing about man's need to protect and care for someone; yet the one feeling is as basic as the other."

"Nor were they free of the images their own minds held of themselves. The man on horseback, the lone-riding man, the lone-thinking man, possessed an image of himself that was in part his own, in part a piece of all the dime novels he had read, for no man is free of the image his literature imposes on him. And the dime novel made the western hero a knight-errant, a man on horseback rescuing the weak and helpless."

Dr. Thomas Sowell

"Today one can literally go from kindergarten to becoming a graduate student seeking a Ph.D., without ever hearing a vision of the world that conflicts with the vision of the left."

"Even liberal professors can be adversely affected by the narrow groupthink that prevails. Without an opposition to keep them on their toes, they can develop sloppy habits of dismissing or even demonizing differing viewpoints, instead of practicing and teaching their students how to come to grips with opposing beliefs."

From Dry Rot in Academia

John Stuart Mill

"In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character was abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time."

Josepth Stalin

"We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?"

Robert Tracinski

"The way we view the naked human body reflects our view of human nature itself. We portray our bodies in ways that are crude or refined depending on whether we view our souls as crude or refined. And we do the same with the sensuality and the sexual capacity of our bodies. We can view sex and the nude body as a dangerous temptation that draws us away from higher ideals and down into the muck—or we can make it part of those higher ideals. We can make it an expression of a wider lust for life, an expression of the same spirit of aspiration that drives all of our other achievements."

The Three Graces by Antonio Canova

David by Michelangelo

Frederic Bastiat

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

"But how is this legal plunder to be to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."

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Private correspondence is welcome from interested, rational individualists. There are few enough of us that we should highly value one another and any friendships that might grow from contact.

Ayn Rand

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see."

Patrick Henry

"No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."

H. L. Mencken

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Thomas Jefferson

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add, `within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrants will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

Ayn Rand

"Serenity comes from the ability to say 'Yes' to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say 'No' to the wrong choices made by others."

Galileo Galilei

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."

"By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox."

Henry Ford

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

Samuel Adams

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks."

The Constitution itself remains a strong defense of our individual rights, but those who want power over our lives have long claimed ridiculous interpretations of the powers it grants to the federal government which they have cemented in irrational precedents. Time after time, the fact that our individual rights are broad and must allow each of us to manage our own lives while we pursue our own chosen values, so long as we do not violate the equal rights of others, is a context ignored.

Thomas Jefferson, 1816

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

When the government controls the education system, you can be sure the education system will guarantee the ignorance of the people so they may be ruled without the impediment of the people demanding their individual rights.

John C. Goodman

"Closing Off Consumption Opportunities. Just as low-income individuals in their role as producers are increasing[ly] regulated out of income earning opportunities, in their role as consumers they are increasingly regulated out of the market for essential services. In addition to education and housing, they have been regulated out of the market for medical care, transportation and even police protection. For all these essential services, the wealthy turn to the private marketplace. They even employ police officers as off-duty, private guards for their gated communities. The poor are left with public housing, public schools, public transportation, government-provided health care, etc.

The well-off get all the benefits of capitalism. The poor are left with socialism."

Averroes

"An army of philosophers would not be sufficient to change the nature of error and to make it truth."

An army of scientist mercenaries at the service of All-Controlling Government is not sufficient to make the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis true either.

Ayn Rand on the Creative Man

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."

Lawrence W. Reed

"It constantly amazes me that defenders of the free market are expected to offer certainty and perfection while government has only to make promises and express good intentions."

Patrick Henry

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government lest it come to dominate our lives and our interests."

Prof. Walter E. Williams

"That initial premise is that each of us owns himself. Stated another way: I am my private property and you are yours. The institution of private property is the right held by the owner of property to keep, acquire, dispose, and exclude from use. The premise of self-ownership determines which human acts are moral or immoral and consistent with that premise. For example, rape, murder, slavery, fraud, and theft are immoral because they violate private property."

Thomas Jefferson

The "sum of good government" is one "which shall restrain men from injuring one another" and "shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement."

The presumption is maximum liberty limited not by the welfare of others, but only by the injunction to do no harm to others.

H. L. Mencken

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."

Madison Versus Hitler

"(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation... (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." James Madison

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so." Adolf Hitler

Frederic Bastiat

"The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education."

Mark Twain

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

This certainly applies to those who believe in the catastrophic man-made global warming alarmists, minimum wage laws, ObamaCare, the ethanol in gasoline mandate, and tying solar and wind power in high percentages to the electric grid.

Prof. Walter E. Williams on White Privilege

"The concept of white privilege, along with diversity and multiculturalism, is part of today's campus craze. .....

The bottom line to this campus nonsense is that "privilege" has become the new word for "personal achievement." ....

Are those who work hard, take risks, make life better for others and become wealthy in the process the people who should be held up to ridicule and scorn? And should we make mascots out of social parasites?"

Albert Einstein

"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."

Prof. John Christy, Climate Scientist

“If it’s not economically sustainable, it’s not sustainable.”

Ayn Rand on Human Progress

"Man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress."

George Orwell

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."

Abbot of Arbroath, Chancellor of Robert the Bruce

"For so long as one hundred of us shall remain alive we shall never in any wise consent to submit to the rule of the English. For it is not for glory we fight, for riches, or for honours, but for freedom alone, which no good man loses but with his life." April 1320, Six years after the Battle of Bannockburn

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free."

If one is told " 'it is expedient for the state that you should die,' he should die."

From The Social Contract, a most emphatic statement of authoritarian collectivism by a profound misanthropist.

Patrick Henry

"The Constitution is NOT an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the PEOPLE to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interest."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

"If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government."

Alexander Hamilton

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government."

Milton Friedman

“A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

John Quincy Adams

"Muhammad declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind... The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Muhammad is the prophet of God."

Justice Robert H. Jackson

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

This applies to the government-run education system, as well as every other act of government, including its procurements.

Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead

"Don't bother to examine a folly, ask only what it accomplishes."

Ayn Rand's villain giving us insight into the beliefs of the Progressive Elitists and others with beliefs too divorced from reality to be creditable, yet widely believed or propagated.

Thomas Jefferson

"let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."

Of course this belief implies those great constraints on democracy imposed by the Constitution.

About Me

I enjoy rational analytical conversations, learning from thinking people, and solving problems of science and technology. My perspective is that of an Objectivist with a joyous sense of life, a great appreciation for human complexity, differentiation, and achievement, and a benevolent regard for others. Nothing clarifies understanding like writing about it or trying to teach ideas. A recurring theme is the importance of individuality and the fight for individual rights against the onslaught of the Nanny State and socialism. I wish to live the life of a rational self-managing adult and am amazed that so many others wish to be perpetual children. The fear, envy, and guilt that cause many to yield their individual rights to collectivism are ugly, anti-life emotions. I consistently believe in both the personal and the economic rights of the sovereign individual. As the United States Declaration of Independence says, each of us has the selfish right to our life, our liberty, and our pursuit of happiness. Our mostly ignored Constitution attempts to severely limit the powers of the federal government and to preserve the development and the exercise of our individual conscience.

Robert Tracinski

"The real minimum wage is zero. Actually, it’s less than zero: the real “minimum wage” is going into debt just to have a shot at doing the work you love."

I went hugely into debt to set up my materials analysis laboratory and paid myself only $10,000 in the first year.

Obama

“When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new.” 2015 State of the Union Address

So, we should ditch Big Government, government health care, The War on Poverty, The War on Drugs, Social Security, the Federal Reserve, government-run education, the Davis-Bacon Act, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the Jones Act), and all expansionist interpretations of the Interstate Commerce and the Taxation Clauses of the Constitution upon this Obama Principle of Failure.

Louis L'Amour

"when in doubt, sit down and think. It is only the mind of man that has lifted him above the animals." Evie's Dad

"If he starts anything with me I'll just cloud up and rain all over him." Conagher

"You better ride out of here, Staples. An' leave that gun alone. You ain't fit to handle one. And don't you cross my trail again. I don't like bein' braced by no tin-horn." Conagher

"To be a man was to be responsible. It was as simple as that. To be a man was to build something, to try to make the world about him a bit easier to live in for himself and those who followed." Conagher

"it was the man who planted a tree, dug a well, or graded a road who mattered."

"Conagher had worked too hard too many times to like a thief or a vandal who would steal or destroy the efforts of other men."

Big Bill Knudsen on Progress

"Progress is only made when fear is overcome by curiosity. If you are curious enough, you will not have any fear."

Elbert Hubbard

"Prison is a Socialist's Paradise, where equality prevails, everything is supplied, and competition is eliminated."

Charles R. Anderson

"Every law mandates more guns. Most laws now outlaw individual value choices and more voluntary cooperation among individuals."

Bad Deeds by Robert Bidinotto

2nd Great Thriller about Bringing Justice to Eco Terrorists -- Nominated for Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Book of the Year 2014

Charles Anderson on Hope

".... hope is contingent upon having the freedom to make your own value choices and make their achievement your personal dream. Without the dream, there is no hope. Without the value choice, there is no dream."

A Collapsing Predation, a Plea for Salvation

"These are just plain, ordinary people, Mr. Galt, " said Chick Morrison in a tone intended to project their abject humility. "They can't tell you what to do. They wouldn't know. They're merely begging you. They may be weak, helpless, blind, ignorant. But you, who are so intelligent and strong, can't you take pity on them? Can't you help them?" "By dropping my intelligence and following their blindness?" "They may be wrong, but they don't know any better!" "But I, who do, should obey them?"

From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Sen. Tom Coburn Addressing the Senate

"Your whole goal is to protect the United States of America, its Constitution and its liberties. It's not to provide benefits for your state. That's where we differ -- that's where my conflict with my colleagues has come. It's nice to be able to do things for your state, but that isn't our charge. Our charge is to protect the future of our country by upholding the Constitution." December 2014

James Madison on Laws

"It will be of little avail to the people ... if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood."

Yet this is exactly the sorry state of law in America today.

Charles R. Anderson on Argument

"Observe which side resorts to the most vociferous name-calling and you are likely to have identified the side with the weaker argument and they know it."

From my statement in the Senate Minority Report of 2008 on Man-Made Global Warming Claims.

Ben Franklin

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Ayn Rand on Force and Morality

"Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins." From Atlas Shrugged

The Neverending Battle for Freedom

Requires a Knowledge of Moral and Political Principles

Winston Churchill

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."

Ludwig von Mises

"A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings."

Ayn Rand on Truth Seeking

"The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it."

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.

Charles in Laboratory

Benno Schmidt, President of Yale, March 1991

"The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses ... The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind."

Tacitus, 56 - 120 A.D.

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. "

The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state.

George Eliot

"The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular -- but one must take it because it's right."

Is that not all times?

Public Servant Tyrants

"The people must remain ever vigilant against tyrants masquerading as public servants." George Washington

Aristotle on Inequality

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal."

Claiming unequal things equal in mathematics is obviously wrong, but so is claiming the equality of an individual with good character to an individual of bad character fraught with deleterious consequences.

Mencken on Public Education

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: It is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality." Henry Louis Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Thomas Edison

"From his neck down, a man is worth a couple of dollars a day; from his neck up, he is worth anything his brain can invent."

Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc.

Materials Characterization and Failure Analysis Laboratory

Ayn Rand on Self-Assurance

"But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself." From The Fountainhead

Frederick Douglass

“A man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.”

William S. Knudsen

"A conference is a gathering of guys that singly can do nothing and together decide nothing can be done."

Big Bill Knudsen was the manufacturing genius from the automotive industry who decided that U.S. WWII warfare production should be performed in the private sector with as little government interference as possible. U.S. production overwhelmed that of the Axis Powers as a result and the transition back to peace-time production was vastly eased. He is a little-recognized American Hero.

Margaret Thatcher

"Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy."

Pajama Boy for ObamaCare

I'll be an adult when I am 26. I have no job and live with Mommy. I will get a big subsidy when I go on ObamaCare. Good thing, because medical insurance costs for young men in my state are 2 to 3 times what they used to be. If my gender studies degree ever gets me a job, medical insurance will cost me a fortune. I'd rather just sit at home drinking hot chocolate and have Mommy feed me and do my laundry.

Ayn Rand on Lack of Self-Direction

"The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap." From The Fountainhead

Bastiat on Socialism

"Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism." Frederic Bastiat, 1801-1850

James Madison

Property is "every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage."

"He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them."

"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."

"That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property so called."

"If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property: which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, ... such a government is not a pattern for the United States."

[Yet such a property violating government we now have.]

Obama According to Ron Pisaturo

"My opponents don’t have a plan for the economy, for education, for training, for retirement, for health care, for energy, for jobs, for wages, for investments, for diets. What kind of dictators are they?"

Ron Pisaturo's paraphrase of Obama's State of the Union Address in January 2014.

John Galt on the Battle

John Galt says in Galt's Speech in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:

Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

Groucho Marx

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

Charles in Pensacola, FL

Boy with a Purpose

Andrew Jackson

"Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers -- who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government .... If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, [government] would be an unqualified blessing."

Jay Leno

"The White House admitted President Obama’s chief of staff had advance warning that the IRS was targeting conservative groups. President Obama says the first time he heard about the IRS and AP scandals was from the media. See, that’s why President Obama holds press conferences. It’s not to explain what’s going on. It’s to find out what’s going on."

Government is too big to be well-managed even by a competent manager. It is now apparent what happens when the chief executive is incompetent, but is convinced he is the chief Progressive Elitist.

Thomas Jefferson

"The democracy will cease when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

James I, King of Great Britain

"The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods."

There is historical precedent for the level of hubris of the Progressive Elitist rulers of our time. Just as James I tried to rule independently of Parliament with a claim of god-like knowledge, so does Obama rule independently of our Congress, secure in the belief that he too has a god-like knowledge of what is best for the People.

Calvin Coolidge

Reduced top income tax rate to 25%.Reduced the national debt.Balanced and reduced the budget.Vetoed 50 bills.

"I am for economy, and after that I am for more economy.”

“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”

Gen LaGreca's New Novel

A Dream of Daring - A thickly plotted romantic novel

Jean Jacques Burlamaqui

"Natural liberty is the right, which nature gives to all mankind, of disposing of their persons and property, after the manner they judge most convenient to their happiness, on condition of their acting within the limits of the law of nature, and their not abusing it to the prejudice of their fellow men. To this right of liberty there is a reciprocal obligation corresponding, by which the law of nature binds all mankind to respect the liberty of other men, and not to disturb them in the use they make of it, so long as they do not abuse it."

Kail M. Padgitt, of the Tax Foundation produced the 2011 State Business Tax Climate Index in October. The report evaluates the effects of...

Pamela Geller

In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, Defeat Jihad

Roger Scruton, 2006

The English law existed not to control the individual but to free him.

Laurence J. Peter

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

Ben Franklin - 2nd Amendment

"Democracy... Is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty... Is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." This is why every individual has the right to defend himself, as recognized in the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

John Milton

"Where there is much desire to learn, here of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making."

Cato's Letters

"the power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his own Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys."

They Would Rule the People

Rather than Serve the People

Starve the Kleptocracy and Tyranny

and Promote the General Welfare by Protecting Individual Rights

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

More Important than Ever

Atlas Shrugged, Part II

The Movie, Either-Or, Now on DVD

Democracy -- The Suicide

"Remember democracy never lasts long. It soonwastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814

Thomas Jefferson

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Praise the Constitution

and Pass the Intellectual Ammunition

Ayn Rand: Philosophical Detection

What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an "open mind", but an active mind -- a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants -- a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear.

If you keep an active mind, you will discover (assuming that you started with common-sense rationality) that every challenge you examine will strengthen your convictions, that the conscious, reasoned rejection of false theories will help you to clarify and amplify the true ones, that your ideological enemies will make you invulnerable by providing countless demonstrations of their own impotence.

Alan MacFarlane, 1978

The majority of ordinary people in England from at least the thirteenth century were rampant individualists, highly mobile both geographically and socially, economically rational, market-oriented and acquisitive, ego-centered in kinship and social life. Perhaps this is no surprise, for it makes them very like their descendants.

On Error and Judgment by Ayn Rand

An error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.

Howard Roark at his trial:

"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need." .....

"I wished to come and say that the integrity of a man's creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who're destroying the world." ...

"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society."

Thomas Jefferson

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Paul Krugman, post-election: "It is true that we've been adding jobs at a pretty good pace and are quite close to full employment.&...

California Venus

Rupert Schmid, 1864-1932

George Bernard Shaw

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

Paul's immorality is soon characteristic of the entire society, contributing evermore to strife and conflict.

Fight Big Government

Reduce Spending

Thomas Paine on Principle

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."

Limited Government Capitalism

is the only system that allows Individuals to make their own moral choices and to act upon them. Without individual moral choice, there is no morality and society is mean, brutal, envious, and depressing.

The Homage of Reason

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

Tocqueville

“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him”.

First ObamaCare Stole Your Body

Minimum Family Plan = $20,000

In the name of the best within you,

do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.

But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, and grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

Immoral Government Health Care

Barack Hussein Obama

Consensus

Consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually"- Abba Eban

Obama's Socialism

Absolutely Childish, Banal Thinking

Rose Robbins - Singer/Songwriter

A Goddess would envy her voice.

Who is John Galt?

From John Galt's Speech to Americans in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:

"I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values."

"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act, he must know the nature and purpose of his action."

"But to think is an act of choice." ..... "In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival -- so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be" is the question 'to think or not to think.'

"A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. 'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the action by which one gains and keeps it. 'Value' presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible."

"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence -- and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms."

"Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice -- and the alternative his nature offers is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man -- by choice; he has to hold his life as a value -- by choice; he has to learn to sustain it -- by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues -- by choice."

"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality."

"Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man -- for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life."

"Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness -- to value the failure of your values -- is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altar of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man -- every man -- is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose."

Thus said John Galt, or shall we say Ayn Rand, the great novelist, philosopher, moralist, and Capitalism's greatest moral defender. The quoted sections above are an abridgment of John Galt's speech in the novel Atlas Shrugged. Between the quotes, no changes were made.

A Call to the Sons of Liberty

This is not the time for summer soldiers. This is a time of American crisis calling for winter soldiers.

John Paul Jones

I have not yet begun to fight! The image is from the Navy Memorial.

Thomas Jefferson:

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Charles R. Anderson, Ph. D.

The First Known Use of the Concept Freedom

Amagi, or Freedom, in the cuneiform shown above, is first known to have appeared in a clay document in 2300 BC in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

The Rational Mind Seeks Truth

in the critical observation and understanding of reality. Reality is primary, not man's wishes and whims.